The All-Star break came and went, and so did the Red Sox. The catastrophe that was September, the subsequent gutting (figuratively and emotionally) of the team, and a quiet winter break bring us to the current uncertainties, with pitchers and catchers reporting in a few short weeks. At some point in March, a group of my lady buddies and I will make the hike to Fort Myers for a mom’s weekend away from the hullabaloo, to catch a game and some rays. Do a little unwinding… We will be making a side stop at Anthony Chinaglia’s new restaurant, Osetra. And perhaps some hair and nails…

One of these lady buddies lost her father this week. The funeral was yesterday. As the three shot volley was fired and the bugle sounded his final Taps, I wept for my fellow serviceman. When Angie and Keith came into our lives, so did her dad, Tom. Tom was a retired Marine. He served honorably in Vietnam and his exposure to agent orange, while there, would eventually lead to leukemia. That, coupled with liver disease, led to his passing. Tom became a dear friend to us. Identifying my former service as honorable (thankfully!) and seeing my husband as a kindred spirit in all things mechanical, combustible and edible, we became a part of his massive circle of friends. He hired me to garden the pool area at his multi-million dollar entertainment complex/homestead. It was an honor to work for Tom.

Even though I only served in the Coast Guard for eight years, I felt that he respected me for it, especially since I was a ship navigator and not some pencil pusher at a desk job in headquarters. He definitely appreciated his women, his guns, his automobiles/boats/motorcycles/etc. and his wine. His casket color is, befittingly, Merlot…

Unfortunately, his passing brings a significant loss of tip income to the wait staff of Jacksonville. Some of his favorites were actually at the funeral. That says a lot about a guy. He was a giver… send gifts to Toys for Tots, in lieu of flowers…

We are having a remarkable January here in Switzerland. It’s in the mid-seventies. I have the hose running into the veggies, mesclun is sprouting, Lisa has eaten all of the good strawberries off of my plants, which she pulls out and drags across the yard for more dramatic effect. And I have fresh datil peppers ready for eatin’. Just snipped back the basil a bit, and need to trim back the thyme. Too much thyme on my hands! My snap dragons from last year are still going strong. I hate seeing these developments plant snapdragons in their landscapes and then pull them at the end of one season. Do they not realize that they keep going if you take care of them? I despise such conspicuous waste…

Someday, all of this waste will bite us all in the ass. Maybe not when I’m alive, or in my children’s time, but it will. And none of us will be around to say I’m sorry for ruining it for the future. We have so much in the past to learn from, and yet, so few people seem to be willing to do anything about it. Especially land developers. They are the WORST of all of us. Even the ones who conform to land use rules and mitigation projects. If they just left it alone to begin with, we wouldn’t have this issue. And all of the children from the plastic generation who won’t make the effort to reduce consumptive practices are not going to be able to look back and acknowledge how their buying habits enhanced the degradation process.

I would really like to have some chickens and a couple of goats. Eggs are a staple to a baker like me, and I have a special place in my heart for chevre. Someday, I will make this happen. Maybe I can board my brood at Cindy’s…
Need tomato cages… and bird seed… the crystal ball shows a trip to Ace in my near future.

And, so, tomorrow brings us a visit to SuperClassico town, yet again. The Copa del Rey vuelta in Camp Nou should prove interesting, as the last week has brought fans at the Bernabeu whistling Mou, Marca reasserting divisions between the Portuguese and Spanish, with the sweet little Germans caught in between. Wonder who they side with? And Iker has to scrape these guys together every week and build a team. Our Capitan must be growing weary of the strain of leading this group of amazingly talented individuals.

Right now, I am watching out my back window as tufted titmice dart through the air, catching newly swarmed flying ants. The sun catches on their wings as they launch off the guest house and twirl around their prey. I guess it isn’t good that we have flying ants swarming, but the birds are doing their job.

And my neighbor’s golden rain tree has truly become a total nuisance. The seed pods are worse than ever this year and I don’t know that we have a chance of ever seeing the end of the carnage. That tree is going down one of these days, at my hands.

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About dendrobiem

Into: ancient history, horses, dogs, birds, nature, gardening, futbol (soccah!), baseball, hockey, rugby, working hard, buying shoes.
Not into: purses, angry people, bosses with inferiority complexes, eating eel, people who abuse their children, people who refuse to recycle because of conspiracy theories, who should team up with the folks who don't buy any organic product because of a news report about some organic labeling being inaccurate. Definitely not into Tr*mp